{"id":21951,"date":"2025-06-02T18:16:28","date_gmt":"2025-06-03T00:16:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/blending-tradition-and-education-friday-academy-empowers-native-students-in-montezuma-county\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:10:40","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:10:40","slug":"blending-tradition-and-education-friday-academy-empowers-native-students-in-montezuma-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/blending-tradition-and-education-friday-academy-empowers-native-students-in-montezuma-county\/","title":{"rendered":"Blending tradition and education: Friday Academy empowers Native students in Montezuma County"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Indigenous
Indigenous high school students plant willow and cottonwood trees on private property along the Mancos River during their last Friday Academy. (Cameryn Cass\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

As the school year came to a close, so did the first Native American Friday Academy, made up of high schoolers and one middle school student from Montezuma-Cortez and Southwest Open schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a new experience,\u201d said SWOS student Shey Siles. \u201cI never thought I\u2019d be here, right here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Every Friday for a month, about a dozen students convened and learned a new skill to better equip them for higher education, said Sherrell Lang, a Native American success coach at Pueblo Community College Southwest.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it\u2019s not college, what\u2019s their interest post-high school,\u201d said Lang.<\/p>\n

The inspiration for the Friday Academy was in thinking about that next step.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow can we be more aware and more connected with ways our Indigenous students learn? How can we assist and support their transition to higher education?\u201d said Lang.<\/p>\n

Throughout the academy, students pursued paths, like cooking and nutrition, STEM and resume building, said Greg Felsen, who helped organize and lead the academy with Lang and PCC.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday\u2019s theme is the environment,\u201d said Felsen.<\/p>\n

That morning, students met in the commons area at Pueblo Community College near Mancos and sat in a talking circle, checking in with how they were feeling, things they were looking forward to.<\/p>\n

Some reported feeling tired, while others expressed excitement for the day ahead.<\/p>\n

In the circle, Felsen explained how they were going to private property on the Mancos River and plant traditional crops, an extension of the Montezuma Land Conservancy\u2019s Traditional Harvest Project.<\/p>\n

That project, which started in the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe\u2019s Environmental Department, \u201caddresses habitat loss and degradation on tribal lands and increases tribal access to culturally significant plants on ancestral homelands off the reservation,\u201d according to MLC\u2019s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At PCC, students piled into vans and drove out to the property, where people from the Montezuma Land Conservancy, Trees, Water & People<\/a> and the landowner gathered in another talking circle.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an opportunity to give back. Our ancestors harvested on this land,\u201d said Treston Chee, an Indigenous Lands Program Content Creator at Trees, Water & People.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it\u2019s about giving tribal access to homelands they haven\u2019t had access to in a long time,\u201d said Chee.<\/p>\n

Jesse Ramirez, an environmental consultant at Ramirez Natural Resources Stewardship LLC., explained how they were going to plant poles of willow and cottonwood \u2013 \u201cbasically a stick in the ground\u201d \u2013 along the banks of the river that afternoon.<\/p>\n

\"\u201cIt
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t smell as bad as I thought it would,\u201d a student from Southwest Open School said with a laugh during the last Native American Friday Academy. (Cameryn Cass\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cIt increases habitat and cools the water,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re giving back \u2013 being on the land is special.\u201d<\/p>\n

While planting, Chee encouraged students to \u201cSpeak to the water, the land. As hippy as it sounds, it\u2019s healing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before students traded their sneakers for muck boots, Regina Lopez-Whiteskunk, the cross-cultural programs director at MLC, burned sweetgrass as her father gave a blessing that went in and out of their native tongue.<\/p>\n

Afterward, Lopez-Whiteskunk said that her father weaving in and out of English and their native language a \u201cchallenge.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey must gain that traditional knowledge to know the full story and share our language,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Lopez-Whiteskunk added how the \u201cintergenerational work is phenomenal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Engaging youths has historically been a challenge for the tribe, and the Friday Academy has helped mitigate that challenge, she said.<\/p>\n

\"\u201cLand
\u201cLand is the biggest teacher and guider of our work,\u201d said Regina Lopez-Whiteskunk, the cross-cultural programs director at Montezuma Land Conservancy. (Cameryn Cass\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Students
Students from Montezuma-Cortez High School and Southwest Open School plant willow and cottonwood trees on private property along the Mancos River during their last Friday Academy. (Cameryn Cass\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cI\u2019m excited that curiosity arrived in the youths today and that curiosity is leading to action,\u201d she said. \u201cFor me, this is my reward. I get to see something I nearly lost hope in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plus, with all the partners who showed up to make it possible, they\u2019re able to \u201cbraid the process of conservation with traditional knowledge,\u201d said Lopez-Whiteskunk.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor so long those were separate, spoken in silos,\u201d she said. \u201cI feel so strong the solutions have been there, they\u2019re just dormant.\u201d<\/p>\n

The private property in Mancos they were on that day is \u201csurrounded by easements,\u201d meaning they\u2019re permanently protected with the Montezuma Land Conservancy, said Austin Easter, the conservancy\u2019s conservation director.<\/p>\n

Three neighboring landowners are all participants in the Traditional Harvest Project, which makes up nearly a mile of the river corridor. Importantly, he said, the conservation work is \u201ca blend of Western science and traditional knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a pretty incredible project,\u201d Easter said. \u201cWith pretty incredible landowners.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ron Osborn, the property owner, said it was a \u201cgreat opportunity\u201d to restore the land. He added it\u2019s been \u201camazing\u201d that water flow and riparian habitat have improved.<\/p>\n

He became teary-eyed when he talked about to people and place that his involvement in the Traditional Harvest Project has fostered. \u201cIt feels like community,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Felsen and Lang at said they hope to secure more funding to continue the Native American Friday Academy.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the heart of it is success,\u201d Felsen said. \u201cI\u2019ve seen students open their eyes to educational opportunities they haven\u2019t thought about before.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis work goes beyond a year, a season,\u201d Lopez-Whiteskunk said. \u201cOne day, they\u2019ll be able to walk this land and see what they contributed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"People
People from Montezuma Land Conservancy, Trees, Water & People and a private landowner pose alongside local students participating in the first Native American Friday Academy. (Cameryn Cass\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Organizers hope to continue the academy in the future<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21952,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[529,28,2312,29,547],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-21951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-conservation","tag-headlines","tag-mancos-river","tag-newsletter","tag-ute-mountain-ute-indian-tribe"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21951"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77521,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21951\/revisions\/77521"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21951"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=21951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}